Peter Marino is the principal of Peter Marino Architect PLLC, an internationally acclaimed architecture, planning and design firm founded in 1978 and based in New York city, however with several offices around US, like Philadelphia, Miami and so on. Marino’s Design contributions in the worldwide, emphasizing materialiy, texture, scale light and the constant dialogue between interior and exterior. He is widely known for his residential and retail designs for the most iconic names in the fashion and art worlds. Notable and recently completed retail projects include Ermemegildo Zegna flagships in Paris, Milan, New York, Tokyo and Shangai; Chanel boutiques in Paris, New York and Singapore and so much more! Also notable hospitality projects including the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda in Sardina, and Four Seasons Resort in Santa Barbara. Currently Peter Marino is designing numerous private residences aournd the world, including London, Paris and Palm Beach.When the Elevators open onto the 36th floor at Peter Marino Architect, the first things visible are multiple Damien Hirst dot paintings and a stainless-steel skull with bullets for teeth by Joel Morrison. There are also several massive black-and-white photographs of the principal of the firm, Marino himself, standing always with legs slightly apart and a black leather policeman’s cap pulled over his eyes, looking like a cross between a Hells Angel and Karl Lagerfeld. By the reception desk, there is a Han Dynasty horse carved from an enormous block of sandy stone, and there is one wall of Andy Warhol lithographs in bright, saturated colors—and there has also been delivery of a gleaming new KTM motorcycle. The next morning Marino will leave for a ten-day motorcycle trip across the American West. “Live to ride and ride to live, dude!” Marino says. He is 62 years old and has a trim, jet-black Mohawk and goatee. He is wearing a sleeveless leather top that is open on the sides except for three straps secured by shiny silver buckles, a pair of low-rise leather pants that lace up the backside, a snug leather codpiece, and leather motorcycle boots that cause him to walk with his legs open in a V, just like in the pictures. “This is my summer leather,” he says and raises his bare, tattooed arms to the sky, showing a thick strip of muscly midriff. “Air conditioning!”

He is looking forward to this break for the chance to stare, for hours on end, at a white line on a black highway. Sometimes, when he is riding, he plays Wagner’s entire “Ring” cycle through in his head. After his ride, he’ll go straight to Paris for the opening of the Louis Vuitton boutique he’s just redesigned, and then he’ll go to Beirut to check in on a luxury-condominium and hotel complex he’s been working on for the past year and a half. After Beirut comes Shanghai, where he’ll attend the opening of the company’s largest store ever—the largest store he’s ever designed. “I’m like a sleep-­hibernation camel, dude,” Marino says. “I’ll go on four hours a night for a while and then I’ll come home and be asleep for 72 hours straight.”